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The Memorial Day holiday, observed the last Monday of May, started shortly after the Civil War ended in 1865 and one of the earliest known observances was in Charleston.

During the war, the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club was a Confederate prison. 鈥淭here, hundreds of Union soldiers had died from disease and mistreatment, their bodies hastily buried in unmarked graves,鈥� Ashley Gorbulja writes in The American Legion magazine.

On May 1, 1865, less than a month after General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, 鈥渘early 100,000 people 鈥� primarily newly freed Black men and women 鈥� gathered [at the track and] worked to rebury more than 250 Union soldiers in a new cemetery.鈥�

Historian David Blight 鈥渦ncovered details of the event from newspaper reports of the time, calling it one of the first Memorial Day commemorations in U.S. history,鈥� Gorbulja writes. Several communities, southern and northern, have claimed to have first observed the holiday honoring 鈥渢he brave men and women who gave their lives in service to our nation.鈥�

Gorbulja, an Army National Guard veteran of Arlington, Virginia, shows how the origins of Memorial Day 鈥渁re deeply intertwined with African American history, a fact often overlooked.鈥� The Charleston commemoration 160 years ago, 鈥渋ncluded a solemn parade led by 3,000 Black children carrying flowers, musical tributes (including hymns and patriotic songs such as 鈥楯ohn Brown鈥檚 Body鈥�), speeches by Union officers and ministers, and formal military honors, with Black Union regiments marching in formation.鈥�

The Charleston observance was much more than 鈥渁 collective act of mourning. [It] was a bold statement of African Americans鈥� role in preserving the Union. By organizing one of the earliest Memorial Day observances, they laid the foundation for a tradition of remembrance that continues today.鈥�

During the Civil War, an estimated 鈥�200,000 Blacks enlisted in the Union Army and Navy.鈥� Their service was with unequal pay, segregation and racism. By the end of fighting (April, 1865) about 180,000 Black men 鈥� perhaps 10% of the total 鈥� were in the Union army.

The segregation continued until after World War II. Yes, that鈥檚 the correct war. The unequal treatment of people of color in the U.S. military services is well-documented. The famed Tuskegee Airmen were deliberately withheld from flying in combat until First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt intervened.

The 1865 observance in Charleston, and in other places North and South, was three years before Gen. John A. Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued General Order No. 11. The GAR was a fraternal organization for Union veterans, a forerunner of veterans organizations such as the American Legion and the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars).

Logan was a well-known Illinoisan, one of the top politician-generals of the Civil War. He served in Congress before and after the war. As GAR commander, Logan called for an annual day to decorate graves of fallen soldiers.

The observance was Decoration Day well into the 20th century, and was expanded to include all military service deaths, and beyond that. Memorial Day was made a federal holiday in 1971.

Little River resident D.G. Schumacher grew up in a twice-weekly newspaper in Central Illinois and started a 60-plus-year journalism career at The Associated Press in Chicago.